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2022-05-25 17:34:45

Skip to contentRishida.netAn Overview of UnicodeEven though there’s a lot of complexity under the hood ofUnicode the truth of the matter is this is one of the more elegant solutions inthe world of programming to provide a unique number and “identifier” for everysingle character a computer may have to redo or analyze – regardless of theplatform that computer is based on, the program that is running, or theindividual language that is being input into the machine.This is a game changing development that transformed theworld of programming when it was established, helping to create a universalstandard (partly why it’s called Unicode to begin with) that streamlined thingssignificantly even though it can be a little bit complex to wrap your headaround at first when you are just getting started.Below you’ll find our accessible overview of Unicode tobetter understand exactly what you are getting into when you start to utilizethis programming standard, an encoding that isn’t technically an encoding –something we will dive a little deeper into below.How characters worked before UnicodeWhen you boil everything down, computers really only everdeal with numbers – zeros and ones – and aren’t really understanding orinterpreting the individual characters that you are punching in on yourkeyboard or are having displayed on your screen.Before the Unicode system was developed there were a varietyof different encoding systems out there, each and every single one of them thatassigned numbers to individual characters in a unique form and fashion.A lot of these character encodings simply didn’t mesh upwith one another, weren’t capable of covering all characters for every languageon the planet, and weren’t even able to handle all characters and symbols in aspecific language (like English) without basically melting down.One of the biggest challenges in the world of computerprogramming before Unicode was the fact that these character encodings simplydidn’t line up with one another. If two separate encodings were using the samenumber for two totally different characters altogether, or using differentnumbers for the same character, the end result was a catastrophe.On top of that, a certain computer may have been designed totake advantage of a variety of different encodings that were completelydifferent than the range of encodings that a different computer or operatingsystem was able to understand.Anytime data was passed or transmitted between these twocomputers there was always the potential for encodings to conflict, a situationthat inevitably caused a whole host of data corruption issues, serious errors,and really slowed down the collaborative nature of data sharing to begin with.Worse, there were some languages out there deemed “toosmall” to even have their characters encoded to begin with. Japanese and itspictograph based language, for example, had to be translated into a differentlanguage before it could be encoded in the early days.Unicode comes along and changes everythingEarly computer programmers fought with all of thesedifferent character encodings for quite a while (honestly a lot longer than youprobably would have expected) but there came a time when a global standard wasrecognized as being absolutely essential.This was the birth of Unicode.Engineered to be a global standard that was capable ofsupporting each individual character in every world language, includinglanguages that had not yet been encoded and hadn’t even been understood or“invented” at that point in time, Unicode was built to be expandable and aboutas future proof as humanly possible.In fact, languages that computer professionals never thoughtwould be encoded have been added to Unicode over the last few years, languagesthat include Cherokee, Mongolian, and even ancient projection hieroglyphics,believe it or not.Languages that have distinct dialects can be encoded throughUnicode now as well, something that was very difficult to pull off successfullywith traditional character encoding systems that did not support the Unicodestandard.The big benefits of a Unicode standardThere have obviously been a myriad of benefits that theUnicode standard has our shirt in, not the least of which is a step towardscreating a truly universal language that computers can understand effortlessly– moving our technological revolution forward even faster than we would havebeen able to otherwise.Unicode provides an easily digestible encoding language thatallows software, websites, and other digital to be designed for a whole host ofdifferent platforms, languages, and nations around the world with a simple andstraightforward approach that slashes costs and improves stability across theboard.On top of that, Unicode data can be shared and used across avariety of different systems without having to worry at all about data failure,data corruption, or unforeseen errors because of a specific coding scheme.The ability to transmit and share data across a variety ofdifferent systems, all of which may be running different operating systems,different web browsers, different software versions and different nativelanguages without any hiccups along the way is really one of the mostimpressive things Unicode makes possible.Combine that with the fact that Unicode can act as a “translator”for a variety of other individual character encoding schemes – with thosecharacter encoding schemes being translated to Unicode first and thentranslated to another character encoder for full backwards compatibility –opens up a tremendous amount of power and potential that never existed before.Unicode keeps evolvingAt the end of the day, though, the most impressive thingabout Unicode is that it was conceived of as something truly future proof andwithout limitations.As we made mention of earlier, it’s possible for languages(including some long thought dead and gone forever) to be encoded in a way thatcould have been possible without a lot of brute force effort and manpower withtraditional character encoding approaches.On top of that, languages that are invented in the futurecan also be encoded with Unicode.This is a global standard that will continue to be expandedon, continued to be developed, and continued to be useful no matter what kindsof changes we see in the computing world for the next decade, quarter-century,half-century, or more.Never again are computers going to have a difficult timespeaking to one another across barriers that humans continue to have tostruggle with.Data can be easily understood, interpreted, and sharedacross a variety of different systems because of this complete characterflexibility that Unicode works with, allowing any letter, any number, and anysymbol (past, future, and present) to be condensed down into a very specificnumber that a computer can recognize and interpret.One of the most incredible things about the power of Unicodeis that it is capable of all this while remaining totally in the background,something that end-users are never going to think about why they take advantageof major technological advances only ever made possible thanks to the flexibility,versatility, and stability that Unicode has ushered in.Make no mistake about it, without this universal standardour world that depends so much on hyper connectivity across a variety ofdifferent devices, hardware options, and software solutions would look allwhole lot different than it does today.Recent PostsHow to Convert Text to Unicode CodepointsCategoriesToolsRishida.netProudly powered by WordPress